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His head hurt. His side hurt. His chest hurt the most, but not in the usual way, it wasn’t his lungs — no, this felt tighter, more staggering, although it held the same heaviness.
Swords clashing in the distance implied the fight hadn’t ended yet, which meant someone had to have taken his place fighting those… those deities.
Who in the world still had the drive to fight?
He felt another sting in his chest, and the noises blurred together into one, incomprehensible mess again.
If he didn’t know better, he’d say the weretiger had found his way back to the battlefield. That it was him fighting the battle Akutagawa seemed to have lost. Because who else could it possibly be? It wouldn’t have surprised him, it was proven to be in Jinko’s nature to make up for all that Akutagawa lacked.
It used to infuriate him. Burn him.
Still did, in a way.
If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the man somehow hadn’t died in front of him, hadn’t sacrificed himself like a fool to give Akutagawa a chance to do something right for once.
But alas, he knew better than that.
It was weird, though. The fact that he himself had somehow been spared from death, neither of the divine beings finding satisfaction in finishing him off. Instead, they just locked onto this new mysterious opponent as soon as Akutagawa’s body gave out.
He was never destined to get this far.
Somehow, even in his absence, the weretiger had found ways to corrupt his mind, though it felt like a revelation this time. Understanding what he meant by ‘true strength’, not feeling Dazai’s glooming presence haunt him when he was close to giving up, gaining a new sense of determination that pushed him further than he had ever gone.
But that rush he had felt had completely faded, and laid on the ground as he was, he felt more like a corpse than a person.
Stupid weretiger, he’d overestimated Akutagawa’s strength when he was on his own.
“Akutagawa, keep holding on!”
…Huh?
Suddenly, everything scrambled and all his thoughts went quiet, as if they were never there in the first place, the silence a desperate attempt to make sense of it all. His mind might have blanked, but his body knew. It didn’t make sense, because it never did, yet that pounding mess inside of him knew.
It… had to be him. His heart wouldn’t be so cruel as to make that up. It had to be him.
It was weird. His body felt paralysed mere seconds ago, and the weretiger was supposed to be dead. And yet, he still called out Akutagawa’s name right there, and the ground beneath him suddenly felt solid again. His fingers twitched, grabbing hold of a patch of grass as he forced himself up, eyes only opening once he was sat up straight.
The view in front of him slowly unblurred, and his eyes caught onto the big, familiar, fuzzy silhouette. He felt himself get up on his feet, then walking, running, getting closer and closer and closer to the tiger until —
It wasn’t just warmth that met him when his arms wrapped around Jinko’s frame. He felt safe in a way that shattered his previous understanding of the word.
He buried himself deeper into the white fur, sinking to his knees for a better grip around the weretiger’s thick neck. His fists clenched, drawing him closer — their closeness, undeniable proof that the weretiger, his Jinko, was here. Alive. With him. In his arms. Breathing fast from the aftermath of the fight, but breathing.
The figure in his arms began to shrink, until the ferocious tiger gave way to a lanky, sweat-drenched boy, eyes levelled with his own, frozen in place. Akutagawa adjusted his hold, pulling Jinko in again, until his nose rested in the crook of his neck.
He didn’t know how much time passed — seconds, minutes, maybe more — only that at some point, the weretiger’s trembling arms came up around him and held him just as tightly.
Whatever had been crushing his chest eased, just enough to let him breathe again.